Songs of Deliverance

By Marilynn Griffith

Fifteen years ago, Zeely Wilkins and Ron Jenkins were students the school district stopped believing in. Lucky for them, their teacher knew something the principal didn't; they were cream of the crop but they just hadn't sprouted the way people expected.

Though they went their separate ways, the past is calling them back to the school and the teacher who wouldn't give up on them. Now they'll have to decide what love really means--and whether they're willing to dance to a new tune to get it. But can they rediscover the songs of deliverance that once brought them together? Or will secrets keep them apart?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
• Release date: Nov 1, 2009
• ISBN: 9781441212702

Book preview

SONGS of

Deliverance

Books by Marilynn Griffith

Rhythms of Grace

Songs of Deliverance

SHADES OF STYLE

Pink

Jade

Tangerine

Turquoise

SONGS of

Deliverance

Marilynn Griffith

a division of Baker Publishing Group

Grand Rapids, Michigan

© 2009 by Marilynn Griffith

Published by Revell

a division of Baker Publishing Group

P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287

www.revellbooks.com

E-book edition created 2011

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

ISBN 9781441212702

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

Scripture is taken from the King James Version of the Bible.

Published in association with the Books & Such Literary Agency, Janet Kobobel Grant, 52 Mission Circle, Suite 122, PMB170, Santa Rosa, CA 95409-7953.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

For my grandmother, Goldie Freeman,

whose humming was the soundtrack of my childhood.

Thanks for letting me daydream.

I’ll love you always.

Thou art my hiding place; thou shalt preserve me

   from trouble;

thou shalt compass me about with songs of deliverance.

   Selah.

Psalm 32:7

Contents

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52

Acknowledgments

Reader’s Note

1

Zeely

Then

My roommate, the bishop’s daughter, noticed first. Her timing was terrible. Both of us were exhausted from pulling an all-nighter to get our papers done—and class was in one hour.

Has it kicked yet? she asked from the desk behind me, her voice no different than when she said goodbye before going to class.

I didn’t turn around, didn’t want to see in her eyes what I’d been hiding, even from myself. Huh?

She didn’t play along with me. The baby. Has it kicked yet? That costs more.

The room started to spin. I felt myself falling. The bed seemed to rise up to meet me. I rolled over onto my back as a cold wave of fear washed over me.

Pity passed over my roommate’s face, but it was replaced quickly by a resolve I had only seen in my mother. She stopped writing. Her paper was due today and she was an honor student. Mine was typed neatly on the desk next to my bed. Somehow I knew that mine wouldn’t get turned in either. Not today, anyway.

On her feet now, she came toward me, still talking in that horrible, even tone. It’s not so bad. I’ve done it twice. Lots of girls here have done it more than that. You’ll do fine, but you’re going to have to listen to me. Do you think you can do that?

I shook my head no. She wasn’t making any sense. None of this was. I couldn’t be pregnant, could I? I’d just been busy, that’s all. Stressed. Mama said that happened sometimes . . . And then I thought about it, counted the days, the weeks, went all the way back to what I started that night after graduation.

Don’t fool yourself. Your mother told me everything about you. Twenty-eight days like clockwork. Well, I’ve been waiting and your clock ain’t ticked yet. Now it’s my mess too. Do you know how hard it was for us to get away from home? From the church? They’ll have us all home by the weekend. For good. Face it, girl. You’re pregnant. Now, I know it’s hard the first time. Are you going to do what I say?

I shook my head again, then nodded.

Lord, forgive me.

My hands trembled when she reached out to pull me up. I had to get to Cincinnati to see Ron. He’d know what to do, what to say. Drive me to UC, to see my boyfriend. I have to tell him, I said.

The girl, Sara was her name, shook her head. That’s the last thing you want to do. The men are overly sentimental about babies. Not that they want to take care of them, you understand, but they want you to have them.

My mouth hung open. Sara really was crazy, and so was my mother for thinking this girl could keep an eye on me.

Look, I’ve got to tell him. Here. I shoved my last twenty dollars at her, knowing that was more than enough for gas to get us from Central State to the University of Cincinnati and back again.

Well, I ain’t turning down no money, but I still think it’s a bad idea. This is going to take all week, I see. You’re taking the hard way. Freshmen always do. Come on.

We had to stop three times on the ride, once for me to pee and twice for me to throw up. It was as if admitting I was pregnant gave my body permission to have all the symptoms at once. By the time we pulled up on Ron’s campus, Sara was really regretting the trip.

Let’s just find him and get it over with, huh? No long talks and all that. Just tell him and let him know what you have to do. It won’t take much convincing. He doesn’t want to drop out of school.

I was starting to think that it was Sara and not the baby that had made me throw up. How could she say things like this? Was this the same girl who had sung in the state youth choir with me and served on the national missionary board? She was a bishop’s daughter, for goodness’ sake. What scared me more was that there was a ring of truth to her words, like somebody reporting news ahead of time. My news.

A friend of Ron’s who knew me somehow, probably from my pictures, let us into his room. I lay down on his bed and sighed with relief, glad for just the smell of him. When I heard a key turn in the door, I sat straight up and gave Sara a hard he’ll-be-different-just-watch look, willing Ron to come in, but he didn’t, not right away. He was talking to someone.

Look, I want to rush the fraternity and all, but I can’t get with those girls you were talking about. I’ve got a girlfriend and it’s pretty serious.

Long-distance love, huh? Everyone here has a girl at home. This is college, man. Lighten up.

She’s not that far. Right over at Central State. We see each other every weekend.

The other guy got quiet, then he got loud. Central? Are you kidding me? Isn’t that a black school?

Sara’s eyes got big. I hadn’t told her anything about what Ron looked like. I hadn’t thought it mattered anymore. Until now.

Yeah. She’s black. So what?

Look, I’m just trying to help you out, okay? I can see you’re real smart but you haven’t had anybody to tell you how things work. You’re going to be a lawyer. You can’t marry a black girl. You can keep her, sure, but you can’t marry her. I’m telling the truth and you know it. C’mon, you don’t want to be broke all your life, do you?

When Ron didn’t answer, I didn’t stay. I nodded to Sara and we opened the door and pushed between them. For the first time, Ron looked like what he really was, what my mother had seen when she saw him—a white boy. The blond bum Ron was talking to almost fell inside the door when we came out, but I didn’t apologize or explain. I just kept moving.

Ron didn’t stop to help the guy up. Instead, he came after me.

Zee? What are you doing here? He was running, but not as fast as I knew he could. He seemed scared to catch up to us.

I was scared too.

Baby, what are you doing here? Did you hear all that?

I was going down the stairs now, two at a time. I’d vowed not to say anything else, but I couldn’t help myself. Yes. I heard, I shouted as we banged out of the front door of the dorm and into the parking lot. Ron came through the door right after us.

Sara took out her keys.

Wait, Zee! None of that meant anything. None of it. Please.

He said more, but by then I was zoned out, focused on getting in the car, getting away from the one person in the world I thought would never hurt me.

If he’d had a car, Ron would have chased us, I’m sure of it. He ran half a mile behind us as it was. By the time I stopped crying, we were on the highway.

Sara took out a cigarette and took a long drag. You left a lot out of that story, girl. A whole lot. It’s a shame too. That’s the finest white boy I have ever seen. Woulda been one pretty baby. She blew a smoke ring out the window and handed back the twenty I’d given her. This ride’s on me, girl. You’re gonna need that money later.

I shoved it into my bra and curled up and went to sleep. When I woke up, we were in Dayton at an abortion clinic. I’d come here for a prayer vigil years before. I felt sick again remembering the looks on the faces of the girls who’d broken our line to go inside. Many of them had worn crosses around their necks. A few were girls whose churches I’d sung at. How, I wondered then, had girls like that ended up in a place like this?

Now I knew. Church girls ended up here the same way everyone else did, by letting our behinds rule our minds, as my mother so wisely said. She’d been right . . . about everything.

Sara broke things down for me on the way inside. She was loaning me the money because I was one of those soft types, and if she took me back to campus now, I’d never go through with it. I shrugged as she pushed me along the sidewalk. She told me how I was angry and confused and sometimes anger was good because it could make you strong enough to do what you have to do and blah blah blah. She was pushing me and talking, but everything was blue-grey, like some sort of mist. I heard Sara but couldn’t really see her. Nothing made sense.

It would kill your mother for you to come back to the church pregnant. It happened to a friend of mine. She told her parents and her mother dropped dead, right there.

That made sense. I started walking on my own.

The clinic waiting room was full. More men than I had expected: fathers with their daughters, husbands with their wives, a few brothers and boyfriends. I stared at the married couples the most, thinking of all my brothers at home and the nine or ten kids at Jeremiah’s house. (I never could get the numbers right on the younger ones in their family. I was the baby girl at my house.) He’d be the one for me, my mother had said, my beloved. Only Jeremiah thought differently. He’d chosen the cheerleader with the shortest skirt and made his apologies.

Though my dream husband had a different face than the one Mama had for me, I still wanted a house full of children. Okay, so maybe not as many as the Terrigans. But still, when I thought about it, which one of my brothers would I do without? Which one of Jeremiah’s little sisters would I pick to scratch out? None of them. I loved them all. Even if their brother didn’t love me. And that was just as well, because I loved someone else too.

Or at least I had.

Sweat broke out on my forehead. I told Sara to get her money back. I couldn’t do this. It would hurt my parents either way, but this was their grandchild too. Mama would come around, somehow . . .

Ann Terrigan?

Sara pulled me up by the arm when I didn’t respond to my middle name and Jeremiah’s last name. He’d failed to marry me, but I was going to get something out of him. I didn’t use my own name or even Ron’s. You never used your real name in these places, Sara said. She picked the last name to remind me that if I didn’t do this, Jerry or any other good church boy would never marry me.

That’s you, remember? she said, pulling me out of the chair. That’s the name we used. She said you just never knew who was in these places. People were quick with names, especially with our fathers being in ministry.

Hang on, she said as I disappeared behind the door. I’ll be here waiting for you. It won’t take long.

She was right. They were quick, too quick, with everything. We were back on campus by dinner. Sara smiled and laughed, flirting with every guy who passed us by.

You can pay me back a little at a time. One day you’ll thank me, she leaned over and whispered when one of the football players smiled my way.

I knew then, as I know now, that it cost my soul.

With interest.

2

Ron

Now

She slid through my hands, falling away from me. Again. I caught her, pressing my hands too tight around her shoulders. I couldn’t help it. I yelled for a nurse as Zeely’s head flopped between her knees. Blood stained her jeans, pooled between her shoes. Her eyelids fluttered.

Help me. Please. It was me talking for her, saying what she would have said if she could. I screamed for somebody, anybody to come. Finally, I had her in my arms, but like always, she was slipping away from me. Only this time I felt like if I let her go, I’d never get her back.

Sir? You can let her go now. Sir?

The nurses came from everywhere. They pushed me aside and slid Zeely on a gurney. They waved for me to follow. Come on. Are you the husband?

Something broke inside me. I could have been. I should have been. I wasn’t. No. Not exactly—

Call the family. What’s her name?

Zeely. Zeely Wilkins. We were just released. There was an incident. A gun . . .

The Okoye woman?

Yes. Grace. She is Zeely’s friend. Her neighbor. There was a man, Malachi—

Someone pushed a chart into my hands. I filled out what I knew and shoved the papers back. There was too much to tell and not enough time to tell it. The night rushed past me: Brian running toward Grace’s screams, me running to Zeely’s condo. In that moment, I thought I knew how much I loved Zeely, how much I’d loved her since the first day I stepped foot in a church and thought her father was Jesus himself. I’d vowed to Brian that day to marry her. Now, it seemed that the night, the past, had taken her from me after all.

The cart rounded the corner, leaving me where it felt like I belonged. Alone. I tried to run after them, but my body refused to move. Instead, I stood there, staring at the smear of blood left on the floor. After all these years, all the waiting, all the secrets, surely God wouldn’t let it come to this.

A hand touched my shoulder, a hand that I knew—Brian’s hand. He was my brother by blood, though not the kind that runs through a mother’s veins. We were related by the blood he’d wiped from my wounds. We were bonded by the only thing that united my white life and his brown one—our losses and loves, things no one else knew or cared about. He was my closest relative and a stranger to me all at once. It had only been through the madness of the past few months, the panic of tonight, that we’d come back together.

I reached for him now, knowing that after the bullets and blood we’d seen last night, we were again brothers. One look in his eyes told me he was hurting too.

He beat my back with his fist, not hard enough to hurt, but just enough to make me feel better. Him too. When he touched me, I saw it all again.

Brian feels things sometimes. I do too, but not the same way. He had a hunch, so we went back, like the fools we are, to check on the women we love, the women who don’t love us back. We were just going to cruise down the street, in neutral or something. They were both at Zeely’s, he said. That’s where he’d left Grace. Her condo was dark. That feeling Brian had, it was probably nothing.

Then, a light clicked on in Zeely’s upstairs. I’d sat outside her place on enough nights to know that she didn’t get up at that time of night. Another light clicked on downstairs. Zeely didn’t move that fast unless she was dancing . . . or running.

I grabbed the door handle even though the car was still moving. Brian looked at me like I was crazy, and then we heard the sound that changed everything.

Grace’s scream.

The car jerked to a stop. I was out before Brian opened his door. The snow crunched under my feet as I glanced back and yelled, I’m going for Zeely. I’ll call the cops. I’ll find you . . .

Brian was out of sight already, cutting behind a building like somebody on fire.

I felt him on that. I’d jumped all Zeely’s steps and banged on the door. Zee-ly! Open up. It’s Ron.

She didn’t open the door at first. I could hear things opening and shutting, turning over, like she was looking for something. Then, I got a glimpse of Brian down around the back, a few condos down. And he wasn’t alone.

I’ve got to go. I see them—

Zeely came flying out the door as I went down the steps. She had on a leather trench coat way too big for her, but she kept up. When we had almost reached them; when we could see Grace on the ground, bleeding and not moving; when we could hear the unbelievable words the man with the ski mask was saying, Zeely pulled out a gun.

I did love her, you know. Always. Even the first time. I just didn’t know it yet.

I knew that voice. I’d heard it from the pulpit of a church I liked to visit. Malachi Gooden, the bad boy turned preacher. We’d known him growing up, though Brian knew him better. He’d been the founder of the gang that now terrorized Testimony. He’d once been known all over Ohio for his exploits. It seems there was one more to add to his rap sheet—the rape of Diana Dixon, now known as Grace Okoye, the woman Brian had come for, the one who lay breathless and bloody in the snow.

And Zeely had a gun.

Whatever had gone blank inside of me roared back to life. Birdie . . . put that gun down. You don’t know what you’re doing.

She cocked the hammer in response. It was him. He messed up everything. Took her away from me. Then he tries to marry her? Comes into my house and takes her away? My house. Nobody is taking anything else from me.

Her hands were shaking, but I knew the shot would ring true if she took it. I didn’t know where she’d gotten that gun, or when, but this wasn’t my sweet baby from the church choir. No, this was another woman, one I’d had a part in creating. We were all paying for our past sins tonight, only I wasn’t sure I could afford the atonement.

The truth hit Brian hard too. He tried to get up but fell back on one knee. Malachi started running. Right toward us. Brian was up then, behind him like a hungry bear. Malachi kept coming, kept running, right into—

Zeely, no! I pushed her arm but the bullet crashed through the pistol anyway.

Mal kept coming, then fell, grabbing his shoulder.

The gun hung from Zeely’s fingers. She stared at it like it was going to explode. I took it from her fingers. Kissed her hair.

Eyes wide, throat raw, she jabbed a finger at Malachi. You come into my house and do this? You never loved her, but I did. She was finally going to be okay. We all were.

Now, looking into Brian’s eyes, I wondered if we would be okay. Any of us. Mal Gooden had fooled everybody, even me. Only Brian had seen through the man’s clergy collar and big words.

And now, standing in the hall where they’d wheeled Zeely away, Brian saw right through me too.

Is Zeely okay? I still can’t believe she shot him. Did you know she had a gun?

I stared at him for a second as the numb of the night wore off and the reality of it broke in. We could all have been killed. And maybe, in a way, we had been.

They took her away. She passed out. She was bleeding . . . and I couldn’t stop it. I couldn’t get anybody. It’s like she was dying, B. Right in my hands—

But she didn’t. You said they took her, right? They’re going to take care of her. Grace too. We’ve just got to believe, like you always tell me. Just believe.

Is Mal dead? I asked.

I don’t think so, Brian said. He spoke through clenched teeth like the words hurt to say. They definitely hurt to hear. It was too much, all this, and both of us knew it. We also knew better than to say it out loud. How can you tell God that you need a timeout? Life didn’t work like that. We were tapped out, both of us. Neither of us had slept in over a day now. It seemed like a lifetime.

Brian’s eyes opened from what sounded like a pitiful prayer. I agreed inwardly, thankful that God answered those too. Brian wasn’t hugging me now, but his hand was on my shoulder. He was gripping me hard, hard enough to hurt, but I knew he didn’t realize it. I didn’t mind either. The pain let me know that I was still alive.

Was Zeely bleeding? Was it from the shooting? Did he—Mal— did he hurt her somehow? They checked her out at the scene, right? Brian was looking at the blood now, the smear on the ground. Someone had just arrived to clean it up. We stared at each other, thinking of the other blood we’d seen tonight, scarlet against fresh snow.

I pushed away from Brian, whose muscle-bound touch was suddenly far from comforting. It magnified who we were—two men alone in a hospital. I started walking. He knew to follow.

I don’t know what’s going on with her, but it didn’t look good, I said. It hadn’t felt good either. She’d been smiling the most beautiful smile, telling me she was sorry, that she needed to tell me something and then she passed out in my arms, you know? Just like that.

Brian shoved his hands into his pockets. His almost waist-length dreadlocks hung in front of his eyes. I knew what he was thinking— that everyone we loved died—but I was thankful he didn’t say it. Even Joyce Rogers, the teacher who had seen something in each of us that no one else did, the principal who had called Brian and Grace back home, brought all of us together. Her cancer had marked her as someone else we would lose, but not yet. Not today.

For a moment, I was tempted to go to Joyce's hospital room and tell her everything that had happened. The truth might have killed her. Malachi had been her student too. She’d believed in him as much as the rest of us. And Grace? Grace had been the best dancer Joyce had ever taught, the one who would be her legacy until her virtue was stolen and her parents took her away.

Zeely would make it. Grace too. I had to believe that things could be different.

Maybe Brian believed it too. We’ve been through worse. She’s going to be okay. I feel it.

I stared at Brian, trying to believe his words. His feelings usually turned out to be true. He’d always known when my mother would come home walking, drunk and barefoot, ready to do to me what my father had spent so many years doing to her. Back then, Brian had said that I’d be okay. And he was right. Sort of.

As we reached the nurses station, Brian took my hand again. He squeezed. I didn’t squeeze back.

He held on anyway. Lord, you’ve brought us this far. Now we need you to take us the rest of the way. Let Zeely be all right. Grace too. All of us . . .

For once, Dr. Brian Mayfield fell silent. Speechless.

Amen, I whispered as I pulled away. Amen.

They wouldn’t let me see her. Not for a while. They weren’t supposed to tell me anything since I wasn’t family, but a nurse who knew me from church whispered to me that Zeely was in stable condition. That sounded good. At least she wasn’t critical.

I tried to get Brian to go home, but he wouldn’t, even after he slid off a chair in the waiting room—while we were talking.

Just go, man, I said. "You’re too tired to drive. Get a visitor’s room in the annex